Conversion-Focused WordPress Development
Most WordPress sites do not have a conversion problem so much as an accumulation problem: plugins layered over builders layered over a theme nobody chose deliberately. We do WordPress development with conversion as the constraint — building what the site needs, removing what it does not, and instrumenting the result so your next decision has evidence behind it.
CRO strategy, design and development across Shopify, WordPress, Convert, Optimizely, VWO and Adobe Target.
Does this sound familiar?
These are the situations teams actually describe when they get in touch about this, not a generic list of pain points.
Plugin weight has overtaken the content
Dozens of active plugins, several doing overlapping jobs, each loading its own CSS and JavaScript on every page whether or not the page uses it.
Builder markup cannot be styled, tested or measured
Deeply nested wrappers with generated class names. Any experiment that targets them breaks the next time the page is edited, and the markup itself is a performance cost.
The form is a black box
Submissions arrive by email, or do not, and there is no tracking on the steps before submission. Nobody can distinguish a traffic problem from a form problem.
Editors cannot change the page without breaking it
When only a developer can safely update a landing page, marketing stops updating landing pages. Editability is a conversion feature.
Updates are deferred because nobody trusts them
A site that cannot be updated safely is a site that will eventually be updated unsafely.
What changes when this works
Stated as the position you end up in. No percentages: we do not publish outcome figures without the measurement conditions and the client’s agreement to it.
- Pages your marketing team can build and change without a developer ticket
- A lighter site, because the first round of work is usually subtraction
- Forms that are measured step by step rather than judged on whether the email arrived
- Markup stable enough to run experiments against without them silently ending
- A WooCommerce funnel you can see, from product view through to order
- An install that can be updated safely, on a schedule, without holding your breath
What is included
Scope stated as specific outputs rather than as adjectives.
- Conversion-focused WordPress websites: custom themes and child themes built to be maintained rather than to demo
- Landing pages and campaign templates built inside WordPress itself
- Custom Gutenberg blocks and block patterns so editors can build pages without a developer or a builder plugin
- Elementor development and, where it is the right call, controlled migration off it
- WooCommerce development: product, cart and checkout work, plus the funnel measurement around it
- Custom post types, taxonomies and template hierarchy work
- Form development and integration: validation, error recovery, CRM and email delivery, spam handling, GDPR-aware storage
- Third-party integrations: CRM, marketing automation, payment, booking and membership systems
- Performance work: plugin audit and consolidation, asset loading, caching strategy, image handling, Core Web Vitals
- Analytics and tracking implementation via Google Tag Manager and GA4, including form and interaction events
- A/B testing implementation on WordPress, using stable markup rather than builder-generated selectors
- Redesign implementation, where a new design has to be built into WordPress properly
- Maintenance, staged updates and regression QA on a staging environment
How the work runs
- 1
Audit the install, not just the design
Active plugins and what each is genuinely responsible for, theme and builder layers, hosting and caching, current Core Web Vitals, and what tracking exists. This is where most of the available wins are found.
- 2
Subtract, then build
Consolidating overlapping plugins and removing dead assets usually produces a bigger measurable improvement than anything we could add. Then we build what is actually missing.
- 3
Build for the editor
New page structures ship as blocks and patterns the marketing team can use directly. If a change needs a developer every time, it will not get made.
- 4
Instrument and validate
Tracking implemented and verified on staging, including form-level events, before anything reaches production.
- 5
Release and maintain
Staged deployment with a rollback path, then a maintenance rhythm that keeps core, plugins and PHP current rather than frozen.
What you receive
The artefacts that exist at the end, all of them yours to keep and to hand to somebody else.
- A plugin and performance audit naming what each plugin costs and what it is for
- Custom blocks and patterns, documented so editors can actually use them
- The theme in a repository you own, with a staging environment that matches production
- A tracking plan and verified GA4 events, including form-level measurement
- Before-and-after Core Web Vitals on the templates that carry traffic
- A maintenance and update procedure, with the regression pass written down
Who this is for
Businesses whose WordPress site is the sales channel
Lead generation, bookings or subscriptions run through the site, and the site has not had deliberate attention in years.
Marketing teams blocked by their own site
You want to launch campaign pages and measure them without opening a developer ticket for every change.
Agencies needing WordPress capacity
You need block, theme or integration development behind your design and strategy work, white-labelled if required.
Sites in bad technical health
Slow, plugin-heavy, un-updatable. The first job is usually subtraction, not addition.
Who this is not for
Saying this up front saves both of us a call. If you are on this list, the right next step is usually elsewhere on this site rather than nowhere.
- Anyone wanting a cheap theme installed and configured. That is a legitimate purchase and not what this is
- Sites where the honest answer is a rebuild. If the install is beyond repair we will say so and scope it as a redesign rather than bill for maintenance on something that cannot be maintained
- Teams committed to adding a plugin for every requirement. The first round of work here is usually removal
- Ecommerce on Shopify. That work sits under Shopify development
Why us rather than the alternatives
Every one of these is a legitimate way to get the work done. Here is where each of them tends to break, so you can decide honestly.
Instead of a page builder and a plugin stack
Fast to start and it compounds against you: builder markup you cannot test, plugin CSS on every page, and a site nobody can update. Custom blocks give editors the same freedom with markup that stays light and testable.
Instead of a general WordPress agency
Most build competently. Fewer treat instrumentation, selector stability and Core Web Vitals as build requirements, which is what determines whether the site can be improved after launch rather than just shipped.
Instead of a maintenance plan that only applies updates
Applying updates without a regression pass is how a site breaks on a Tuesday morning. Here the update procedure has a staging step and a written check attached to it.
WordPress stack
Named specifically, because “modern tooling” tells a buyer nothing.
- Block editor (Gutenberg), custom blocks, block patterns, theme.json
- Classic and hybrid themes, child themes
- Elementor, and other established page builders where already in place
- Advanced Custom Fields and custom post types
- WooCommerce
- PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS
- WP-CLI, staging environments, version control
- Google Tag Manager and GA4
- Convert Experiences, Optimizely, VWO and Adobe Target against WordPress sites
How this gets checked
Every engagement carries a QA pass. It is written down so that “QA done” means something specific.
- Every template rendered and checked after a change, not only the page that was edited
- Forms tested for validation, delivery, duplicate submission and spam handling
- Plugin and core updates applied on staging with a regression pass before production
- Core Web Vitals measured before and after on the templates that carry traffic
- Tracking events verified in GA4 DebugView, including form submissions
- Editor experience checked: can a non-developer actually build the page as intended
- Accessibility pass on new templates: heading order, labels, keyboard operation, contrast
The full pass, including the post-launch checks, is described on our CRO and experiment QA service. It is also available on its own, on experiments somebody else built.
Ways to work together
The commercial shape is chosen after we know the scope, not before.
Dedicated partnership
Reserved capacity for a steady pipeline of work.
Flexible hours
Draw down specialist time as the work arrives.
Project engagement
A defined scope, owned end to end.
All three are described in full under engagement models.
Questions people ask before buying this
Related services
Experimentation platforms we build on
Further reading
Discuss My WordPress Project
Send the URL and what is not working: speed, conversion, editability or all three. We will tell you what we would subtract before we tell you what we would build.